Snuffed & Purloined #2: Crooked business as usual.
It's business as usual in Hong Kong, even after asset freezes.
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The first story comes out of Hong Kong again — a follow-up to yesterday’s dispatch, as Hong Kong's top treasury official, Christopher Hui, rejects concerns that CCP security laws will damage the city's status as Asia's hub for business and finance.
"Hong Kong is basically what it is — very much business as usual," Mr. Hui told reporters. "People see a lot of opportunities here."
The Main Streeter covered the asset freeze used against media mogul and anti-Beijing activity Jimmy Lai. He pleaded guilty to organizing 2019 pro-democracy protests, which you probably recall.
That was the talk of the town before Covid hit, anyway. How soon we forget.
But even though Mr. Hui says there's nothing to worry about in Hong Kong, the business community is uneasy with Beijing's influence.
This story is part of a beat that The Main Streeter will cover as time rolls on.
All that glitters isn't gold, and trouble lurks even when it is.
The problem isn't the gold — there's plenty of it there in the mine, which is located in Buritica municipality. Zijin's production is being compromised by illegal wildcat miners in the area -- losses amounting to around 20% of production.
Thousands of these miners dig in about 150 clandestine locations, according to the report. A gang called the Clan del Golfo, known as "The Ten" for the 10% cut they take from the illegal mining, protects and controls the operations.
Chinese mining operations struggle in Latin America due to wildcat miners and crime. But China relies on South America for a large percentage of its copper and zinc.
The question remains for Zijin and similar mining outfits: can they smooth out the violence and corruption in the volatile areas where they need resources?
Moving away from mining in the mountains, to a story about mining in servers — 167 fake apps used to defraud crypto-currency traders have been identified by a cybersecurity firm.
The marks are identified on social media and dating apps, where the scammer wins their trust. After a bit of schmoozing and talk about crypto-trading windfalls, the mark gets a link where they can download an app to trade, too.
Problem is — that app isn’t coming from Google Play or Apple app marketplaces — even though they’re made to look that way.
Once the mark deposits funds in the fake app, their money’s just as good as gone.
I covered this scam in an exhaustive look at one victim’s experience in a piece called Scams in the Bitcoin Age.
Very simply — never entrust your money with somebody you’ve met online. Especially if it sounds too good to be true.
A story for the technically inclined: a cybersecurity firm has identified a disk partition exploit used by DarkSide, the ransomware outfit involved in the recent Colonial Pipeline heist.
Much of this article goes over my head, but I’m glad that there are tech wizards out there fighting the good fight.
Some government representatives argue that ransomware demands should not be paid. Lawmakers in the US and the UK have spoken up about the issue, even suggesting that paying ransomware outfits to release the hijacked data or machines should be illegal itself.
As the attacks on Colonial Pipeline, the Washington DC police department, and health-care service providers in recent weeks have shown, society itself is at the mercy of rogue actors who want a payday — social consequences be damned.
If companies and governments continue to playball with ransomware outfits, the argument goes, then the hope for a big payday fuels the incentive for them to keep operating.
Make payments, from both public and private sectors, illegal — and that cuts the incentive at the root. Or so the argument goes.
The problem gets very murky if private companies don’t announce negotiated deals to the public.
The Main Streeter is keeping close tabs on ransomware crime, as it’s likely to only get more troublesome from here on out.
A story that might save you some headache down the road — specific malware has cropped up on Android devices throughout Europe, which are being sent by links in SMS messages.
Hackers use this malware to gain access to bank accounts and other sensitive data.
The malware mentioned in the report hasn’t been found in North America — not yet anyways. And although it’s not in the report, I have heard personal anecdotes from friends in South East Asia who have recently had their bank accounts hacked after receiving suspicious SMS messages.
I’d like to think that even if one person reads this, it can save some headache down the road.
The takeaway: don’t click on suspicious links that are sent to you on any messaging platform.
I don’t know about you, but with all this talk of crypto-scams, ransomware, and malware, my head starts to spin — and I’m relatively tech-savvy.
It’s treacherous out here in the wild west of the world wide web.
But none of this should be a surprise.
As a fiction writer myself — the type of writing that gives me the greatest satisfaction — it puts a smile on my face that the report gives the nod to novelists for prognosticating the present.
Let’s just hope that the Universe doesn’t decide to adopt Philip K. Dick’s work as a template for reality.
And yet, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. That’s the old line anyway.
Consider this $4 billion crypto pyramid scheme, which fleeced members of the UAE royal family.
The Emirates sheikhs lost 230,000 Bitcoin to a Bulgarian woman known as the CryptoQueen.
According to a recent report from Law360, the CryptoQueen and a Florida-based financier have failed to respond to a class-action lawsuit.
I swear, somebody better make a movie out of this.
Other things I’m reading…
I’m keeping close watch on the calendar for May 20th, which is when Wilful Blindness: How a Network of Narcos, Tycoons and CCP agents infiltrated the West by Canadian journalist Sam Cooper is released.
If you’re interested in organized crime, China, narco-trafficking, and how the West doesn’t even know what problems it has with these issues — highly suggest you click that link and read what the book’s contents cover.
When it’s released, I’ll read it and give a full review in a future dispatch.
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